Frontier of Fear

Chapter 9: Bumpy Ride

Mira returned to the bridge of 42. She headed for her co-pilot seat and sat down wearily.

"How'd it go?" Buzz asked her.

"As well as you'd expect," said Mira. She pressed a few buttons on her infopad to transfer Kabra's intake form to the criminal database. "She cooperated. But then she tried to get all friendly with me. I saw right through that."

"There's no reason you shouldn't be nice to her, Mira," Booster spoke up.

"No, you should never give a criminal anything but the cold shoulder," XR countered him. "The only reason a pirate or some other criminal could want to get 'friendly' with the arresting officer is so they can take advantage of them. And yes, I'm speaking from experience. I have made mistakes, but I have learned from them."

"Well, just because she's a pirate doesn't mean she's a bad person—I mean, okay, yeah, she is a bad person, she is a pirate, she's done some horrible nasty stuff, I'm sure," Booster ran on. "But she might not be bad bad—I mean, she could still be capable of some good things, like having friends or family she cares about."

"No, you can't afford to give the benefit of the doubt to those you arrest," Buzz said, agreeing with XR. "One of the most dangerous things a criminal can be capable of is manipulating law enforcement personnel. Remember that whenever we have to transport a criminal longer distance."

"Oh, don't worry Buzz, I don't trust her," Mira reassured him. "I'm on to her."

"So what do we do after we hand over the prisoner?" Booster asked.

"We go back to parran, rejoin the fleet and help Commander Nebula take down Scrail if he hasn't yet."

"Sounds like we may be transporting more prisoners, in a bit," said XR.

"Great, more paperwork. How much further to Cruiser Six?" Mira inquired.

"Not much longer now," said Buzz. "Twenty minutes, maybe."

Mira was going to ask Buzz another question when they heard a high-pitched sound. It came from the brig. "What was that?"

"It wasn't anything malfunctioning, that's the good news," said XR, checking his wall computer. "I'll bet you it's the prisoner. She's trying to distract us. That's very clever of her, but it's not going to work."

Then the ship's intercom went off. "Ranger Nova? Are you there?" It was the prisoner.

Mira pressed a button on the control panel to answer her. "What is it?"

"There's some kind of creature inside my cell. A small animal. It must have snuck aboard while you guys were on Parran. Can you come help me get it out?"

"...Suuuure."

"Now wait, Mira: we were just discussing the fact that you shouldn't trust her," Buzz rebuked her, raising a hand. "This can wait until after we transfer her. Call her back and tell her."

"Good idea," said Mira. She pressed the intercom button again. "Kabra?" She didn't have a better idea than to address the prisoner by her first name. "Kabra, we'll get rid of the creature after we transfer you. Can you wait?"

"I'm afraid I can't," said Kabra. There was an urgent tone to her voice. "It's...it's an aggressive creature. It looks like it wants to attack me and bite me. It even has fangs—" Kabra shrieked. "It's hissing at me again! Come get it before it jumps on me!"

Mira groaned through her teeth. "I'll come and look at it."

"Mira, you can't just take her word for it that there's something in her cell," Buzz warned her. "This sounds like a ruse."